behold the human flame
by fluorescent lights
Summary: Our world was over yesterday. JadeTori, ToriBeck


Title: behold the human flame

Summary: Our world was over yesterday. JadeTori, ToriBeck

Author's Note: AGH I can never write them like I want to. 629842173948 failed attempts to write JadeTori.

Summary comes from "Simple Man" by Girl In A Coma.

/

Her hands tickle the empty spots on the windshield. You watch and see her rings catch the headlights of the incoming cars. The diamond is always the trickiest, though. Blinds you, makes you stop breathing for a while. Tori moves her ring adorned hand. Wipes the sweat beading on her forehead. You turn back to the road. You feel a wave of sleep wash over you, but you don't mention it. Tori would scream.

"Where next?" Tori says, and you want to watch her form the words, pink lips moving forward as she forms her w and retreating at next.

You try to snap your fingers – bad habit, Beck's really, but the steering wheel gets in the way, "How about Texas?"

She turns to her window. She wants to go home. She wants to go back to the man waiting for her in a white room. But you think, happily, it takes a lot of cash to pay for a hospital bed.

"Texas it is," she says, finally; sadly.

You snap your fingers once with a smile and almost veer off the road. Tori grips the seat with her fingers, knuckles and face turning white.

"Sorry," you say, heart hurting; you're a fucking idiot.

"Yeah," Tori answers back, rolling down the window.

Rain flies in and makes the inside of your car wet. You don't yell at her to roll it up. Breathe – one, twice, three times deeply and she tries to smile, but gives up on the dismount.

/

You get to Texas. Tori looks like she's going to vomit, but you take her hand in yours, smile for the two of you.

"It's weird, Jade," she says, suddenly, like she's just thinking about it, "You smile a lot, now."

"Yeah," you say, wishing she would understand just once. "Funny how we traded places, huh?"

She looks at you weirdly, and then you realize she doesn't know what you're implying. You laugh but it falls short.

"What's our plan, Tori?" you ask, tiredly.

She nods, suddenly all business, "What bank is it going to be this time?"

You smirk, "Pick your poison, Tor."

Her eyes meet yours; they tell you quietly that this is not where she wants to be.

Like she'd ever let you forget.

/

You get the hell out of Texas with a fuckload of money in your bags. Tori can pay for four months and still have enough to buy herself a pretty dress or two. She sighs with relief, smiles for the first time in weeks.

You get a dingy hotel in New Mexico and buy a bottle of vodka for Tori and a bottle of tequila for yourself. You toast to each other, to money, to the boy in the stark white room...

Tori always ends up crying when she's drunk. You hold her hand, drink another swig, whisper in her ear. She never likes to meet your eyes, just looks out the window – secrets buried under her skin. You know she wants to be somewhere else, that you're the last person she wants to wake up to in the morning.

But you have always chosen the path of heartache. You hold her hand throughout the night, feel her heart beat through the sheets. When you wake up in the morning with a massive headache, she is back at the window, staring out the window, thinking about someone else.

/

She gets on the first plane back to California as soon as you get to the nearest airport. She doesn't say a word, just vibrates from happiness – a nervous ball of joy and anxiety. You wave at her plane until it's beyond vision.

Someone comes up next to you, asks you why you're here. They must have the same cologne as Beck, because your whole stomach clenches in fear at the scent.

"My girlfriend is going back home," you say proudly.

The person turns to you. You look at him thoughtfully and breathe out slow when you see he's nothing like Beck – not like Beck would ever be walking around an airport on the fringes of New Mexico. The stranger looks at you too; and maybe before Tori, you would've found him to be cute, or something.

"Why aren't you up there with her then?" he asks, head tilting to one side – eyes of Pandora.

You hiss at him, "Mind your own fucking business."

He gives you an apologetic smile and for a second, you can feel the anger rising out of you, returning you back to high school Jade with the wicked temper and a poster looking for your lost heart. But then you breathe like Tori taught you, snap your fingers to a song you can't remember the name of, and you meet the stranger's eyes with no hatred running through your veins.

"You probably don't want me around, but I know that song you're snapping," he says, pointing to your fingers. "I swear, it's on the tip of my tongue."

He curses, and you kiss him, which is dumb, but you do it anyway. He tastes like the word fuck, and you use it two minutes later when you pull away from me.

"Hey, wanna fuck me?"

His eyes are a thousand shades of surprise, but he says yes in a dizzy haze – because there is lust too, along with Pandora and the box of horrible and wicked things like you. You kiss him again, bite his lower lip, and he is your little toy to play with.

He rents a nice room in the airport and tells you he's supposed to be going home to his family. They can wait, you say as you rip his clothes off. His body is nice, not muscular, not tough, but manly in it's own way. You haven't craved a man in months, but you find yourself tugging his pants down and practically begging for him to fuck you.

He kisses you a little too gently, like he's not used to anonymous sex, like he's been in love too many times. You roll your eyes and teach him the ways of Jade West.

"I like it dirty," you say in his ear, your bad side coming out to play. "I want you to fuck me hard, okay?"

He looks at you then, panting hard, and when you look at him underneath you, he looks like a mixture of Tori and Beck. He rips off your shirt, out of nowhere, actually tearing the cloth apart, and you hiss with pleasure. He kisses your chest, bites your breasts, cups them in his hands. You are now the clay. You imagine other people's hands joining his. You imagine that his other hand, creeping down to your underwear, is Tori's. You imagine that Beck is touching your breasts, and you kiss this stranger's neck, claw his back. You are the clay.

His fingers make you purr. I am the clay, you think. You are Pandora, you think. I am the horrible wicked thing coming to haunt your dreams, you think. Your breath hitches; your mind numbs; and you tell him in that voice you save for the brave...

"I want you to fuck me now."

He replaces his fingers and you wrap yourself around him. I am the clay, you think, and you are not one entity, but a thousand. He kisses you and you taste yourself on him. You pull away and smile against his collarbone. You bite down, two seconds later, and that's enough to make him scream. You pant and cry out, and you are being stretched out – you are the clay and you are the horrible wicked things and you are holding Pandora and Beck and Tori and a stranger and this is a lovely, lovely, dumb thing to do.

You dress, minutes later. He meets your eyes and you see that he already figured this would happen. You turn away, pull your dress on over your head, step into your shoes. Your body is relaxed – unraveled. You step to the door.

"Your girlfriend?" the stranger asks – his last words for you.

You smirk, but you feel the tension coming back into your shoulders, "Doesn't really love me anyway."

"I would love you," he says, Pandora betraying his tongue. "I think I love you already, especially after that."

You looks at the door – wonder if you should take off all of her clothes and go back into the bed. You could turn around right now and return to good sex and Pandora eyes and stay the high school you – save yourself the heartbreak and constant crime to get money you don't even need.

"It was nice to meet you," you say instead.

You hear the stranger's sigh as you close the door. You wonder if you broke his heart.

You start to think as you drive to another hotel. Good sex, curiosity, and memories are important, but nothing could replace the feeling of Tori Vega's heart beat through the sheets, of holding her hand, of looking at her and wondering what the consequences would be if you just leaned in and kissed her – forgot about the boy in the white room. Anonymous sex was that. Nothing. Simple. Quick.

That night, as you're trying to fall asleep, you touch yourself and pretend that your fingers are Tori's, that your breath was Tori's, that you yourself were Tori. And even though you get to that point where your whole body reaches nirvana – you know it will never be as good as the real thing.

/

She calls you back two months later. Her voice is dreary and tired. You want to kiss her over the phone, get a plane to California and make love on her lavender sheets.

"College loans are tricky," she says instead of hello.

You nod – remember you're on the phone.

"Where next?" Tori asks, and in your head, you make her sound more excited than exhausted.

"Somewhere over the rainbow," you warble as you knock back another gulp of whiskey.

Tori snorts but sings to a different tune, "I'll meet you in Malibu."

"Deal," you say, and as you're about to hang up, you add, "Bring your bathing suit, Vega."

You pack your bag in a hurry.

/

When you get to the airport, she's already there. She's wearing a pretty sundress – blue. Matches your eyes perfectly, and she mentions this in passing.

You hug her for too long, much to her surprise. As you hold her, you wonder how long it will take to make an excuse to see her in her bathing suit.

/

Tori is shaking when she hands you the bag of money – straight from the bank. Her eyes are wide, her mouth is slightly ajar, and you want to kiss her so badly that you almost miss what she says.

"I don't think I can do this anymore."

You hand her the bottle of Jack, and she downs a quarter of it. You watch how the liquor spills down her cheeks, her eyes budding with tears – from the burn or from fear, you don't know.

When Tori brings the bottle away from her lips and accidentally meets your eyes, you lean in so close that if you moved one muscle, you'd be kissing her. She shivers involuntarily and your lips meet hers. She doesn't fight you away, but she stays still, hands still clutched around the neck of the bottle. You take it from her hands, put it on the floor, kiss her harder. Soon, she's kissing you back, harsh and bitter and you could possibly swim on your emotions. She tastes like sadness. She wraps her legs around your waist, and right then, you swear that you and her are one.

You take your lips away from hers and attach them to her neck. She gasps when you kiss down to her breasts, and her fingers curl into your hair. She's breathing heavily. You feel her heart beating against your lips. You wonder how long it's been since she's been kissed.

"Jade," she mumbles, softly – disbelievingly.

You spend time kissing her left breast, then her right. Her body trembles. You wonder if Beck ever kissed her body like this – before. You remove your lips from her chest, move back up to her lips. She kisses you back hesitantly, and then pushes you away.

"No," she's saying, eyes delirious and wild. "I don't want you, Jade. I don't want this."

But she's looking at your lips as she says it, and you know then, that the year that hospital bed as been occupied has been lonely for Tori.

"Tori," you beg, "You don't have to kiss me – you don't have to touch me. Just let me touch you. I can tell that you are lonely."

You've managed to get this far. You might as well throw all of the respect you have for yourself in the trash. The old Jade might have not thrown herself so desperately at Tori, but you haven't been old Jade for a very, very long time and part of that has been Tori Vega's fault.

Tori nods absentmindedly, like she can't believe she's saying yes. Her eyes are still wild and nervous. You kiss her forehead and she sighs sadly into the air.

You spend the night kissing her body, but she never comes. You do, even though she doesn't even lay a hand on you.

In the morning, all the money is gone, and there is only a note left in the bag.

_Went home. I'll call you when I'm ready to talk._

You go to the bar even though it's ten in the morning. As you knock back shots, you wonder if there's an antidote to Tori Vega.

/

She doesn't call for ages, but when she does, she's crying hysterically.

"Jade," she hiccups, "Oh God, _Jade. _I'm so lonely I miss him so much."

"Come here," you beg, "I'll touch you. I'll love you."

She sobs, "I can't, Jade. I love him. I can't do that to him."

You take a deep, sharp breath, and bark, "He's barely alive. You deserve to be happy. You're holding on to a corpse."

She continues to cry and it takes all of your might to slam the phone on the hook.

/

You see it in the paper a month later.

_Hope Lost For Beck Oliver_, the newspaper says in bold black. You buy three copies of the paper that day, and you memorize passages by heart.

_Renowned Actor, Beck Oliver, has passed as of last night at 7:30 pm. His wife, Tori Vega, pulled his life support after a year of waiting for him to come out of his coma. In an interview with her, she stated that she loves him dreadfully but that he would not want to live like this._

"_He hasn't been Beck for a long time," she said. "It took me a long time to realize that. I got a wake up call from someone I really care for. I wasn't keeping Beck alive, I was keeping him from leaving me. I was holding on to a corpse – a ghost of the man I still love."_

_A private ceremony will proceed the public ceremony..._

You put the article on your fridge after you highlight the words _someone I really care for_.

/

She wakes you up from your sleep by knocking on your front door. It's raining outside, and she's drenched. Her pretty top is transparent and her hair is messy and puffy. You think she's kind of beautiful anyway. She always was.

"I don't have an excuse for acting the way I have for the past year," she says, voice trembling. "I can't excuse that."

She steps close to you, and you would yell at anyone else – would tell them to get their wet ass out of there, but she's Tori Vega, and you're not really Jade West when she's around.

Her eyes are wide and apologetic when she steps forward, her tip of her shoes touching your toes, "Thank you, Jade. Thank you so much."

You roll your eyes, and she leans in to kiss you in a spurt of confidence. You jerk up as a reflex and she laughs when you hit her nose.

"Shit," you say.

She laughs again, and wraps her arms around your neck.

"I think I may like you, Jade West. And that's a little terrifying, still."

"Oh, shut up," you mutter, eyes trained on her lips.

She kisses you. This time, she doesn't taste so overwhelmingly sad.

Later, you make her scream, and when she meets your eyes, hers still sad but happy – you think you haven't been this happy in a very long time.

/

"I'm sorry it took me so long," she says one day, tracing her name into your stomach.

You kiss her hair as your eyes droop shut, "It was worth the wait for you."

You fall asleep, her laugh ringing in your ears.


End file.
